Thanks for that. Puts me on the right road finally. I've had a very wrong idea. Now I know. I shun Onedrive. So in future I'll just consider it's all up to me just as it was in the old days.
And I'll get in the habit of frequent saves.
If there's any third party or Word tweaks I can use please let me know. But I"m happy to take the responsibility to do that keystroke frequently: Ctrl-S.